Durrington, Wiltshire

Environmental data scientist working across geospatial analysis, exposure modelling, and health data

Doug Gregg, PhD, MIEnvSc — freelance consultant spanning air quality, Earth observation, and demographic data integration.

About

I work at the intersection of geospatial analysis, atmospheric data, and public health — building the evidence base that links pollution, climate, and demographic risk to real-world decisions.

I'm drawn to work that answers a concrete "so what" — not just whether a method or model works in principle, but what it changes for the decisions and people it's meant to serve.

My background spans a BSc in Geography, an MSc in GIS & Environmental Management, and a PhD researching the impacts of air quality interventions — including ULEZ and COVID-19 traffic reductions — on ultrafine particles and secondary pollutants, alongside the atmospheric chemistry of hydrogen combustion as a fuel-switching pathway.

Current work spans regional solar suitability mapping, air quality and health equity analysis, and open-source tooling for meteorological normalisation of air quality data.

Location
Durrington, Wiltshire, UK
Qualification
PhD, Environmental Science
Membership
MIEnvSc (Institution of Environmental Sciences)
Core tools
R, Python, QGIS
Earth observation
Sentinel-2, Sentinel-5P, Landsat, MODIS, CAMS
Ground monitoring
AURN, low-cost emissions sampling
Open to
Freelance & consultancy work

Selected work

Geospatial · Solar

Regional solar suitability assessment

Lead geospatial analyst on a site-suitability assessment across East and West Sussex for ground-mounted and rooftop solar with battery storage — integrating environmental, heritage, agricultural, infrastructure, and terrain constraints into a scored raster surface, delivered via an interactive Shiny mapping tool.

Air quality · Health

Air quality and health equity mapping

Linking modelled pollution surfaces with deprivation indices and health outcome data to identify where environmental risk and social vulnerability overlap, supporting research and policy dissemination.

Industrial · Decarbonisation

HyCrem — decarbonising a working crematorium

Technical lead on emissions sampling feasibility and monitoring strategy for a £1.17m NZIP-funded project assessing hydrogen as an alternative to natural gas in crematoria, from funding-bid stage through on-site equipment deployment and stakeholder training.

Doctoral research

Impacts of air quality interventions on UFPs and secondary pollutants

PhD thesis (University of Leicester, CENTA-NERC funded) assessing how interventions such as ULEZ, COVID-19 traffic reductions, and hydrogen fuel-switching alter atmospheric chemistry and secondary pollutant formation. Includes deweatherXGB, an open-source R package extending David Carslaw's deweather with XGBoost-based meteorological normalisation for air quality time series.

Publications & reports

Example outputs

Real analysis, reformatted from doctoral research.

Two-panel chart comparing detrended and observed NO2 concentration in London across Pre-ULEZ, ULEZ, and ULEZ & COVID periods, showing a declining trend with the detrended panel showing a much smoother line than the noisy observed panel

Meteorological normalisation of NO₂ trends — the detrended series (left) strips out weather-driven noise from the raw observed series (right) using deweatherXGB, making the underlying ULEZ/COVID-19 intervention effect on NO₂ concentration clearly visible. Adapted from Figure 3-7 of my PhD thesis, University of Leicester (2026). Read the thesis · Read the paper

Skills

Geospatial analysis R Python Environmental modelling GIS Earth observation Exposure-response modelling Data visualisation Report writing

Get in touch

Open to freelance and consultancy work across environmental data science, geospatial analysis, and demographic data. Send a few details and I'll get back to you.

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